Thursday, December 30, 2010

Well, 2010 is coming to a close (goddamnit... finally !!!111!!), and up here in Quebec New Year's Day rhymes with folk music. So mix one of Quebec's best folk bands (La Bottine Souriante) and one of Quebec's best metal bands (Groovy Aardvark) and you get this pure Quebecois masterpiece. "Boisson d'Avril" is about all the legends that people found a way to make a quick buck out of, from Richard Glenn's intra-terrestrials living inside Mont St-Hilaire to the Loch Ness monster to Rael's Elohim.

As you can probably tell from the lack of postage, my own EVE scene as been pretty quiet during the holidays. On Boxing Day I was invited for supper at my corpmate Uozag's place, and let me tell you this dude is one culinary mad scientist. Nine courses later (yes, nine!) I was full to the point of critical mass but at least the food was of fine cuisine quality. And right the next day I started a special holiday time Dad Week, and this is ending tomorrow. So yeah, not much EVE time. I did get re-acquainted with Hot Wheels tracks... damn it's great to have boys, I can now justify buying the damn things :)))

So there you go. May 2010 die in a proverbial fire; I don't see 2011 as being anything but better because in my case, it can't be much worse, apart from having important people dying and shit. I wish you all an awesome year full of love, health, wealth, ISK, kills, etc.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Or Armageddon, or Ragnarok, or Judgement Day, or whatever else your religion calls it. So now's the time to buy that mansion you've always wanted, that sweet Lamborghini Murcièlago LP670-4 SV, that Learjet, etc. Am I serious? Well of course not! I just had to find a way to open my blog on this winter solstice. I do take a bit more seriously this wayward rock called Apophis that's supposed to pass us by in 2029, and even more seriously the "keyhole" it's supposed to go through. But enough depressing thoughts for now; if our time comes, it'll come, and if I know in advance that it's coming I'll probably celebrate the event with a Magnum bottle of La Fin du Monde :))

On to EVE business. Because of a really fun impromptu get-together with the Montreal EVE pilots, I had a massive hang-over on saturday so I didn't feel like doing any space travel. Sunday was a bit better but I was still in couch potato mode, and I wanted to get out to see Tron: Legacy. I loved it by the way; if you're looking for a movie with a deep story and you're not really into sci-fi to begin with, this movie is not for you. If you're like me and you're more interested about having your eye balls cook in their sockets, then by all means go see it in Imax 3D... a regular movie screen just isn't big enough! I was glued to the movie from start to finish, and even the credits are cool to watch.

But back to EVE, all I did over the weekend was one skill flip and a couple missions, one on Saturday proving me that "3D environments + hang-overs = bad", and one yesterday. But they've made me come to a conclusion: the Noctis saves a crap load of time and allows to make a lot more ISK, at least in my case. Sometimes I would skip salvaging missions because it was just too tedious for the amount I'd receive, but now I can salvage really quick and then go on to other things. I don't yet know if these ships will be included on the "to suicide-gank" list at the next Hulkageddon (it is an ORE ship after all) but at least the ship does the job it's meant to do in a brilliant fashion.

BMTHOKK event

"WTF is this?" you ask. It stands for "Bring Me The Head Of Kirith Kodachi". Some time later this winter, my fellow blogger Kirith will be celebrating his 2000th blog post and 6 years of blogging. And when Kirith is in a festive mood he celebrates by giving away free stuff! But this time he's putting a twist on it: at a yet unannounced date and time, in a yet unannounced Low-sec system (methinks Amarr regions...), Kirith will cyno his Chimera at a planet and will be gank bait for 30 minutes. Prizes will go to whoever gets the final blow, whoever does the most damage, everyone on the pod mail (fit a SeBo!), and whoever returns Kirith's popsicle carcass back to him. And if Kirith survives the 30 minutes he keeps his stuff; I say he doesn't survive 15!

So do I intend to get a shot at Kirith's sweet loot? Yessiree Bob! Of course it won't be a walk in the park as word will probably spread like wild fire and all of Kirith's readers and their buddies will want a crack at him. And I'm sure he has Carrier V and Triage V or something. Plus with a whole bunch of people coming from a whole bunch of corps and alliances, mayhem will most definitely ensue (yay!). I've been on exactly 4 capital ship killmails (3 carriers and 1 dreadnought) but I must admit that those were pretty fail-fit, and the first carrier and dread were in the same humongous cluster-fuck of lag in my BOZO n00b days. No, Kirith is a true-blue carrier pilot and he'll be a tough nut to crack. But whatever happens one thing is certain: there will be quite a light show for the fictitious inhabitants of that planet. And I suspect that there might be a few Titans showing up to DD the Chimera to bits. Yep, this will be pretty awesome! Thank you Kirith for providing such an awesome event, and may you have many more years of EVE blogging. Now, are you doing the same thing with the Wyvern next time? :))

Fly hard, and kill caps

o7

Edit: I've just read that apparently Apophis is no longer a threat, according to JPL. But who knows about other yet-to-be-discovered rocks....?

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Lemmy Kilmister is just about the same age as my dad, but damn does he rock a shit-ton more! A while ago when some guy decided to camp our wormhole and pop a few expensive ships, the dude mailed me the lyrics of Hall & Oates "Private Eyes"... I answered him with these lyrics >:)

And the tune fits perfectly with what happened tonight in EVE. Once again I decided to hit the near-by Low-sec pipe in the search of something to blow up, and if anything it was deader than yesterday. But instead of flying towards Old Man Star I flew towards the place where I knew something would be happening, the hellhole known as Amamake. And it didn't take me long to find some fun. The second belt I land in a Bellicose is waiting for something... so I made sure his waiting was over! This being Amamake, it's not even worth waiting out the criminal aggro so I look for more targets. A few belts later I start a dance with a Rifter, which could be dangerous if he got under my guns but I made sure he didn't, but just before he bought the farm a Jaguar warped in at a perfect angle and HE got under my guns. I scratched his armor but alas, that was it for my Stabber. But the evening was far from over...

After getting back to HQ I reshipped in a Wensley-approved Rifter and headed to the infamous Mya-Gerper constellation. 2 in local, this could be promising. First belt, nothing. Second belt though, a shuttle of all things is sitting at the belt warp-in... ok that's weird, but the good guy in me hesitates. All of a sudden a Vexor warps in at about 30 from the warp-in point right on a rock. the shuttle finally wakes up and bugs out, and this time even if it's something of a long shot, I warp down next to the Vexor and blow the crap out of him. OK, that was too easy. But when I see The Fit, hilarity takes over !!! I have no clue what this dude was thinking... but I'm thinking that he WASN'T thinking.

Before I start, I have to mention that this is blog post #200. Yay me !!! \o/

The second part of the Incursion expansion is now upon us. The learning skills have finally gone the way of the dodo. My Orca named QNS Grand Antonio (yes, I settled on Montreal's well-known strong man with bus-pulling dreads) is now assembled, fit and ready to rock. I did get a Noctis and trained it to a whopping level III; I may train it to IV to get better tractor range but after a month of industrial skills I need to give some love to combat oriented skills. And now that all the boring skills are done, and all the new ships I wanted are purchased, and I still have a more than decent cushion of ISK, I can now concentrate on doing the thing I love above anything else in EVE: vaporizing player-owned ships, or getting mine vaporized.

I did go on a long solo roam yesterday, but for a patch day it was pretty quiet in Gallente and Amarr Low-sec. The only ship that maybe would have given me a nice fight was a Wolf, but I didn't engage him with my T2-fit Stabber for a few reasons: 1- he was sitting at Zero of a sentry-protected gate while I was orbiting him Vaga-style, 2- even though we targetted each other we didn't dare suffer the wrath of the sentries, and 3- the Wolf dropped a can for me to loot to start the festivities but I'm wise enough not to get within scram range of an assault frig. So after a couple minutes of staring at each other we went our separate ways. I went to a planet to see if he would follow but instead he jumped out or logged out, and I didn't see him after.

A few jumps later I had high hopes of catching another Stabber that was ratting, but he did a good job at avoiding me. The first time I saw him I landed 65km away from him, and when I started approaching him he warped off to another belt. I followed him but where I had warped to 20, he had warped at 100, and I wasn't even fully out of warp that he had warped off again. I was still able to follow him but this time he had had enough of a lead and when I came out of warp he was nowhere to be seen. Damn, am I that scary? Do I have to offer ship replacement to get a fight?!

The only ships I saw after that where a bunch of Harbingers and a Legion camping a gate (yeah, right!). I decided to back-track a bit and head to Old Man Star, but when I jumped in we were exactly 3 in Local. Yep, OMS was dead yesterday. I decided to check the nearby Low-sec systems towards Syndicate but I only saw more empty space, with whoever was in Local either docked up or at POSes. One of my Montrealer buddies, Dandrane, was flying in the area so he first visited OMS which was still dead and then came to meet me, and he got a bit lucky because hot on his tail was an Astarte, Ishtar, Vexor, and a couple more ships I can't remember. But in all, nothing much that Dandrane's Vexor and my Stabber could take on. After another short staring match we both headed to OMS to see if the situation had changed (it had not) and then it was time for me to dock up and hit the sack.

Let's hope I get a bit more lucky getting some much needed The PvP action over the coming weekend.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Alright, I caved in. With the annoucement of the elimination of Learning skills (Halleluia!) I had told myself I would keep training normally for my Orca and apply the skill points towards Minmatar Battleship V. But let's face it, in the past 3 months I've used battleships exactly 3 times, and before that I hadn't touched one since I had trained up for my Sleipnir. I've got so much stuff to train before I can justify Battleship V. So tomorrow after Incursion 1.0.1 hits I will be dumping the points into whatever's left of Mining Barge V, and sprinkle the rest here and there. And after that, apart from maybe the Noctis which I will probably train to only II or III, that will be IT for carebear skills. Forever. Good riddance !!! After I get Industrial Command Ship IV I will start buffing up everything Cozmik already has, beginning with Drone skills. All the support skills to V, the specs to IV, and I won't rest until I get T2 sentries. Technically I can fly an Ishtar, but let's make sure I can REALLY fly one :)

Speaking of Incursion, I was reading stuff on Facebook yesterday when a post from EVE Online appeared: a bunch of Sansha zombies had decided to blob Odatrik, next door to the Rens market hub. Cozmik being only 4 jumps away, I logged in to see what the hell this Incursion stuff was all about. And I will sum it up in one short word: meh. Sure there are lots of ships to kill, but when there's 470+ in system they die quick. Too quick even. And I couldn't get into a fleet because it was a huge mess. I did manage to get the kill shot on one of the Sansha Overlords so I came out 1.8m richer, but I don't think this is something I'll get into. And if you think it's gonna be good salvage, think again. With big numbers in system wrecks were disappearing in seconds, even if there were 40 of 'em. Maybe when the incursions happen farther away from a major market hub? Or when they happen in Low-sec where some capsuleer fratricide will happen... these things happen at planets so no sentry guns.

So there you have it. Tomorrow I can go back to training PvP related skills, at least until my Noctis gets delivered; having uber industrialists in the alliance has its advantages! And I gotta find something to kill... oh damn do I need it !!!

Fly hard

o7

*Edit: due to some nasty hardware failure, Incursion 1.0.1 has been delayed by 24 hours. Let's hope all goes well. Need I remind everyone to set long skills?

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

It's that time once again, when Montreal turns from the gray and brown end-of-November dullness to complete white-out. And this year Mother Nature didn't mess around for the first real storm. Having recently turned into a pedestrian, this morning's walk to work was more like an epic journey and I have to psyche myself up to do it again tonight. At least I don't have to do it again till Friday because I have a training course for my work's new pay system, and that's downtown. I won't take a chance and still leave early because I doubt that all the streets will be cleared of snow.

In EVE, I'm starting to get back into the swing of things after surviving one of the most emotionally draining couple of weeks of my life. I thought separating was bad... HA! Oh well, I've talked about it a bit in last Friday's music post so let's leave that shit in the past and let's look ahead. But yeah, in EVE... as I'm typing this text Cozmik is starting the training of Mining Barge V; No worries, it's the ship skill only. I have sworn that I would never ever point a laser at a rock and I fully intend to keep that promise. If I stayed in my PvP clone the skill would end on Christmas day, but I will surely clone-jump back to my mission hub soon because I'll need ISK after buying some goodies like a few frigs and cruisers to annoy The Entity with (hi guys!), a Domination Warp Disruptor to put in my Rapier (to be used judiciously) and finally the Orca, which is sitting in Rens waiting for my training to end. Now I have to think about a good name for it; I'm sure that "Shamu" or "Killer Whale" are way overused, so those are out. Maybe "Grand Antonio", after Montreal's well-known strong man who could pull school buses with his dreadlocks (no joke!). Write a comment if you have an idea :)

Another thing I have to do is collect enough ISK to keep that Orca stocked and ready to rock, so that means oodles of spare ships, mods and ammo. And speaking of ammo, what about them T2 rounds! Finally, Quake isn't just a good FPS game by id Software anymore. I sense a Gank Cane fleet in my future! And I'll also have to test rockets because I haven't fired a single one since the changes brought by Incursion. And through all this I have to survive work, training for work, having my boys this weekend and walking through snow drifts. Yeah, interesting week :))

Friday, December 3, 2010

Tomorrow will mark the 17th anniversary of the death of Maestro Frank Zappa, so of course I have to post something from him. He may be gone, but his music will last forever.

EVE front: well, nothing much happened because I've had a crazy week in Real Life. I've had to grab my financial bull by the horns and body-slam the fuck out of it. Yep, it's called bankruptcy. The downside: no more car for a while; it was actually the reason why my finances started sucking. The upside I feel a helluva lot lighter! Other things will be happening in the near future as I will be moving just before April 1st, but I'll let the dust settle and not think about that too much for now. Holidays first.

Friday, November 26, 2010

I was going through various Frank Zappa videos one day, and came across some people who were doing various covers of Frank's tunes. But one of those covers caught my eye: a girl by the nickname of vkgoeswild had posted a piano cover of Frank's G-spot Tornado. This is one of Frank's technical masterpieces. And after watching it I was floored. About a week later I get one of those "because you watched so-and-so" suggestions on Youtube and it was a Metallica cover by vkgoeswild. So I tell myself "she can own a Zappa tune... let's see what she can do with metal". And I couldn't believe what I had just seen. Instant subscribe, and I checked out the rest of her posts. Next thing I knew it was around 4AM and I was completely mesmerized. There are so many videos of her I could have posted here but I think "Ktulu" is a good example of just how wild Ms Viktoriya Yermolyeva can go. Other fine examples are Metallica's "Orion", Type O Negative's "Love you to Death", Slayer's "Raining Blood"... this one is also worth seeing, as Vika completely translates the power and darkness of this song into her piano. And she has tons more covers. Oh by the way, she makes her own sheet music... o_O

Oh, and to tie in with EVE Online, this cute and shy classically-trained piano destroyer is currently stationed in Reykjavik, and she enjoys having coffee in a place near her house called CCP Games. She also proudly wears the "Harden The Fuck Up" rubber bracelets :)

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

As I'm typing this Cozmik is currently training one of the most useless skills for him, Mining Barge IV. And tomorrow will be the start of the two most atrocious skill levels in order to fly the Orca: Mining Foreman V, followed by Mining Barge V. The rest of the skills after that are puny in comparison. So for the next month all my ISK making efforts will be put towards the purchase of the ship itself. I've already started playing with some fits, and although the choices are very few because after all, this is a huge mining vessel, there's still some fun to be had with it as this will become my fly-to-hot-spot-loaded-with-fun-ships boat.

As you can see, I have absolutely no intention of boosting mining gangs or pulling in jet cans from insane distances. And no, I will not be crazy enough to take it out for a spin in the middle of the next Hulkageddon! Because I have only a single account these days only Cozmik will be able to fly it to haul the equivalent of a small squadron of ships, with spares and a huge amount of modules and ammo, in a single trip. But yes, eventually it would be great if I had an Orca pilot character on a second account that could fly with the gang and sit cloaked in various safespots just the way some carriers do in Low-sec and Null-sec, as a sort of mobile station. Of course it would be dangerous, and that is why I love it :) But for now, it'll be Coz's personnal hauler.

The ore bay: 50 thousand cubic meters of wasted space for a pilot like me. As a spin on the rookie ships, I will probably put one unit of veldspar in it. Or some other fancy rock. Unless a corpmate wants me to bring some rocks from A to B, but MAPU isn't exactly known for its mining pilots!

The corporate hangar: this is where all ammo, charges, scripts, and ready to use modules go. Sorry miners, no mining crystals allowed!

The ship maintenance array: it's not as big as a carrier's so no battleships. But a battlecruiser, a HAC, a Covert Ops, and some interceptors and assault frigates all ready to Rock 'N Roll, all this fits. This will depend on how rich I am and what ships I have that are expendable. If I get ganked with a full load of Rifters I will laugh my head off. But with say a HAC and a HIC, it could get ugly! But that is a risk we have to live with in EVE. But even if there is a risk it takes some effort to get a battleship gang to suicide-gank an Orca. Because this ship will be mostly sticking to Hi-sec routes. If I do have to bring it to Low-sec or Null-sec (W-space or not) I will have to be scouted left, right and center because out there it would look just the way a seal looks to a great white shark!

Now, why fit it like this? A simple reason: because I can! I don't expect to point-jam-neut many targets but who knows? And the probe launcher? I'm in AMC, meaning I will do stuff in W-space once in a while. W-space means having a probe launcher, but I have the skills and the CPU for an expanded launcher so why not?! And the cloak? Could come in handy :)

So in a month's time, if by some chance we get wardecced by a corp living in a specific region, like say Genesis, or if Heimatar Low-sec becomes too quiet and Sinq-Laison has more action, I'll be able to pack up a whole bunch of stuff and be ready to play The PvP as soon as I get to destination instead of having to travel back and forth 4-5 times, with a couple side trips to a market hub because I forgot something. It's a complete bitch to train up for the Orca especially because of all the skills I'll never need, but I'm sure much fun will be had with it.

That's the time it took an 11-man battleship gang to bring down a bare Small Amarr POS. I rushed home for my lunch hour to give what little help I could but this thing came down so fast all I had left to do was leave the system to get ready for other things. Yes I'm sure some towers have gone down faster in K-space using dreadnoughts, but this is not an option in a wormhole system. I have to give props to everyone at AMC for not only being on the ball but also for getting a decent fleet going at a very awkward time. Special props go to Montreal pilot Uozag; he and his alt could probably have taken down the tower alone in about one hour! Now we all know that small towers are not exactly the most expensive things around, especially when there are no modules to complement it. And we know that the enemy has one pilot logged in the system, so now the job is to pod that mofo back to the Motherland :)

So, DinatronniEffekt, if you guys want to waste a 3rd tower in our system, by all means do it >:)

Monday, November 22, 2010

I logged in tonite to an animated conversation in AMC's board room channel, and it wasn't long that I found the reason. Some of you may remember the story of a POS bash I wrote about a couple weeks ago, going on at the same time as one of our wars. Well, it seems that the owners of that POS did not quite understand the message. At first it was only one guy who had stayed in our wormhole system to harass some of our guys with his stealth bomber. But he and his corp apparently underestimated us, again. The conversation I logged on to was about ANOTHER small Amarr tower that had just gone online in our system, and the owners are the same guys. The tower is so freshly installed that there is only the tower and a ship maintenance array. Not even a single gun in sight. Within minutes the op is called and forces are gathered. The 1400's were going to sing again.

But guess what: they didn't have to sing for very long. With no Warp Disruptor or ECM module or gun to take out, putting a small tower into reinforced mode is quite fast. So we're dealing with a bunch of russian players who apparently enjoy wasting tower after tower just to get a few kills in W-space. Only in EVE....! I have to give props to all the AMC guys who showed up as fast as they could make the trip. A few arrived too late but this will mean only one thing: that tower will pop hella-fast once it comes out of reinforced :)

About freakin' time...

In other news, I've spent much of my weekend doing some much needed carebearism because I was close to flat broke. Enough that I could finally replace my long lost PvE Loki, turned one of my two Sleipnirs into a PvP ship (the fit still needs work I think) and got a new Vagabond. As much as I hate carebearing I have to drill myself to do it a bit more because I would like to get a spare Vaga or two, as well as spare Hurricanes. But in about a month I have a big purchase to make, that of my Orca. Oh well, at least I have plenty of T1 ships to throw into various little fires!

To the russian guys. Yeah you, DinatronniEffekt corp. Since you like blowing ISK so much maybe you should buy me my Orca... at least that would be something useful for a change! Oh and while you're at it, change your ticker from DIEF to DIAF !!!

Friday, November 19, 2010

When Max Cavalera left Sepultura, the band was never the same again. When Max's brother Igor left, interest in Sepultura pretty much died. But recently the old spirit has come back in force as Max and Igor have joined forces to form Cavalera Conspiracy. Add some Life After People shots, and you get one kick-ass video :)

EVE front: The second war we got was a complete waste of time as our enemies don't play on the same time zone, and are a bit too fond of station humping. We didn't get a kill, they got only 3; one Hulk pilot who had it coming and deserved it, Felix's Moa vs a Cane, and one of my Taranii vs a Cynabal. Yes we engaged even knowing we would die, and shit I didn't even have time to come back in something that would actually be a good fight with a Cynabal as the other guy logged. And the next day the same guy had left for IT Alliance. Yep, stupidest war ever. At least the Genesis guys were fun to play with as they were actually out in space. Now, as boring as it may sound Coz needs to do some carebearing cuz I am beyond broke!

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

In the middle of summer I hit the real-life age of the Big 4-0, and as I'm typing these words Cozmik R5 is about to finish training Industry V (yeah... fun!) which will bring him to just about 40 million skill points. Yay Coz! Of course the dreadful skills will be piling up over the next month but this is necessary for my field deployment Orca; I really wish there was a proper combat version that doesn't require all the industry and mining skills I'll never use. An off-shoot of the Command Ships or something. The Orca will make moving into an area of operation so much easier. Just recently when war started in the Genesis region I had to move ships there, and it would have been so much easier to do it in a single trip instead of 4-5. Not to mention all the extra modules and ammo I could have carried. Well, around New Year's this won't be an issue anymore.

And after the Orca? Well there will not be anything special for a good while because I'm quite happy with where Cozmik is at right now. I will slowly start pushing all support skills to V. Small and Medium Projectile and Hybrid specializations? V. And why not Larges. I already have Interceptor and HAC at V so I just have to do the same with Strategic Cruisers and subsystems, Interdictors, Assault frigates, EAFs, Cov Ops, Recon and Cloaking. Maybe I'll cave in and get Logistics Ships but let's be honest, I would not get to fly a Scimitar very often and constant lack of practice would make me suck at it. And then there's Minmatar and Gallente Battleships V. That's 2.5 months right there! Ultimately I will have to get the Advanced Spaceship Command skill but I'm so uninterested by Capitals or specialized battleships that I will wait until ALL of my combat skills are maxed before I get it. So this should keep me busy for a good long time.

Not only am I not interested in the big ships, but it's not a huge secret that as an almost purely PvP player, with no army of alts because all of the money-making parts of EVE make me want to throw up every last drop of bile in my body, I am perpetually poor. Sure I mission up once in a while and get some ISK, or else I wouldn't have the stuffed hangars or the semi faction-fit mission runner. But when it comes to making ISK I become extremely lazy because I see it as EVE becoming a second job. It's pretty simple: I play EVE to blow shit up in space, and at that there is no game that does it better. I had high hopes for two games but unfortunately they're starting to stink of Vaporware-itis. So until something comes out that is more suited for my style of game-play, I am playing EVE. Don't get me wrong though, I actually admire the work that a lot of players put into this game to build all the fancy stuff that I blow up or get blown up. But I just don't have the patience to do it myself and get rich with it. Deep down inside I remain the purist Quake player :)

Friday, November 12, 2010

This week's video fits with all the events AMC had to deal with this week, with a POS bash, a POS defence and a wardec. Iron Maiden is the band that turned me on to Metal in the early 80's. As soon as I heard the Number of the Beast album, I was hooked. And I'm still a fan to this day. Which reminds me... if you have a chance do check out the documentary, Iron Maiden: Flight 666. Directed by fellow canuck and Metalhead Sam Dunn, it's pretty much the best music documentary ever made.

On the EVE front: this is my quiet weekend in game, so I'll get my Hurricane out of the ass-end of Genesis and back around Heimatar space, and clone-jump back to my implants of fast learning +4! Having had to replace a Hurricane and a Vagabond last week, Coz needs some cash!

Live to fly, fly to live

o7

Edit: Forget about jumping into the +4s... another corp wants to play hardball. I hope their mits are well oiled >:)

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Sorry Mr Weber if I had to steal your title, but this is pretty much what happened to AMC over the last couple of days. In an event completely unrelated to what was happening in our W-space colony, one of the newer corporations in our alliance was slowly making preparations to leave a system in the Genesis region where they had lived and prospered for a long time to give W-space life a shot. But the place where they live has a funny entity. They are known as Genesis Alliance and they claim to "own" the Genesis region. Their view of things: if you want to live in Genesis you have to join their alliance, or they will suicide-gank mining ships, and ultimately declare war. This was going to be fun!

On Monday night, just has we were getting ready to hit the invaders' tower in W-space, AMC gets an evemail from CONCORD stating that after the obligatory 24 hour period, a state of war would be declared between us and Genesis Alliance. Yay at the free pew-pew without caring about pesky things like security status and sentry guns! So at the same time we are dealing with POS jammers, alliance mails are being sent to get players ready for the coming hostilities. And some time on Tuesday afternoon, war begins. Our enemy appears to have the numbers advantage, but a closer look at the corps and their members reveals that there are a lot of new players. And I mean a LOT! But still, numbers are numbers and a few too-eager AMC guys got popped by a 30-ish man hodge-podge fleet that must've looked like Battlestar Galactica's 12 colony survivors. The more PvP-minded players of AMC (like yours truly) right away warned our players not to jump right into Corp 42's home system as it was heavily camped, but instead pick off stragglers that are traveling between the blob and the market hub of Dodixie. And that is where the tide turned.

There was a failed attempt at a POS bash on Corp 42's tower, but unlike the tower that we hit in W-space, this one is a proper Death Star, with manned guns and proper gun placement. The enemy did have battleships, but the quality of their setups was questionnable and their logistics non-existant. They simply had no choice but to bail out. And all of a sudden something broke in our enemy's ranks. After the blob had split GA members started going about their mundane lives and flying casually here and there, mining afk, and so on. That's when Havegun Willtravel, KL1 and Elmerus Juniorus arrived on the scene and turned Hi-sec Genesis into a bloodbath.

At around the same time, things were getting ready to finish off the small Amarr tower in W-space, and because it had simply been abandoned and the modules not repaired it took only about an hour to erase it from existance. KL and Elmer had actually made it back to W-space and they did the tedious job of killing every single gun, jammer, scram, and POS modules. I may not have certain proof of this, but I'm pretty sure that the GA brass took a quick look at the AMC killboard, put 2 and 2 together and figured out that all the players that were busy in W-space were about to come down on Genesis like flies on poop. Not long after the POS went kaboom, AMC received another evemail from CONCORD stating that Genesis Alliance had retracted its declaration of war and in 24 hours hostilities would end. BOOOOO !!!!

But I wasn't going to be left out. After some real life chores at home and a quick visit to Letrange's place (where I learned the war was about to die), I got on and started asking about enemy movements in Genesis. Things were kind of quiet but 6 to 8 reds were online, and I hooked up with KL1 and Elmer and we right away killed a Cormorant and its pod. As they were checking the traffic at the gates, I decided to push straight to Corp 42's system to tour the belts and smack-talk the reds like only an old BOZO can. And as I land at Belt 1 a flashy red Wreathe is quietly munching on rocks; he barely has time to realise what is happening that he is waking up in a new medical clone. And his corpse is not even fully frozen when a flashy red Osprey lands right on top of me. He is a tad smarter as he was able to warp his pod out but the Osprey is no more. I was just about to pop his wreck full of useless mods that a Manticore arrives, but cloaks right back up and leaves. This was going to be a great night!

Before I have time to check for the bomber's whereabouts the guys at the gate mention something about a Prophecy about to jump in. It gets tackled and raped. I go back to the belts just to make my presence known, and guess what... a few belts later I land right on the uncloaked Manticore! He tried to target me but I think I snuffed him out before he even got a single volley off. And then something weird happened. A neutral in Local noticed all the "started to warp scramble" messages I was generating and convo'd me. Player: "Are you guys at war?". Me: "Yep. They wardecced us and now they're paying for it :)". Player: "Well, you have a GA Tempest about to get here. Free intel!". The Tempest was 2 jumps out and I'm sure I beat CONCORD at the Donut Dropping skill as I left my belt, got to the only gate out where a few more AMC guys were camping, jumped thru and burned hard to the gate the Tempest was about to come through, all the while rallying the troops as frantically as I could. Only KL and Elmer followed me as the second gang got to kill a trashy Thrasher. but we did catch that Tempest and fragged it into next sunday. Elmer got the pod, and I got the sweet battleship killmail!

This was the last major kill of my eventful evening. A Thorax was also killed but most of what we were seeing were noobs frantically trying to leave the area in frigates. After missing 2 or 3 frigs I piped up in Local: "You guys must love your CEO for getting you into this scrap". One of the noobs answered something we found hilarious: "Our CEO would kill you all... he flies a battleship!". I haven't laughed so hard since the BOZO days! And on that funny note I had to call it a night, one of my most prolific nights in my time in EVE. So apparently this alliance lured in newbies with the promise of free ISK and ships, but I think someone just learned the hard way that it's not only the quantity of pilots that's important.

Once again, I'd like to thank all of AMC's care-kodiaks who came out and got the most kills AMC ever got in so little time. We may not be huge, we may be all spread out throughout New Eden, but in the end when push comes to shove we can shove pretty fucking hard! Gratz all !!!

Fly hard and smart

o7

PS: So the Manticore was killed BEFORE the Prophecy... same diff !!! :))

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Yep, I thought I'd be staying out of a battleship for a good while but apparently I was wrong. An intruding corp decided that putting up a small tower in our immensely huge colony system would be awesome, and even after receiving a notice that doing such a thing wasn't exactly a great idea they not only refused to take the tower down but tacked on (quite litterally... the POS set-up was horrendous) a few more jammer mods. So yesterday AMC did what it had to do, and all carebear claws were honed to full laceration potential. Yes I did say that the last POS bash a few weeks ago would be my last one at least for a good while, but as I mentioned over the fleet comms, at least I didn't have to jump through hoops while juggling razor blades on fire just to get in the system. Plus, the entry system was only 7 jumps from where my RR Tempest was sitting. So I got in it, loaded up on ammo, and headed for the fleet to make the 1400mm guns heard.

Upon arriving I had all the trouble in the world to target anything because there were so many jammers wreaking havoc with our ships, but the lone warp scrambling battery had already been incapacitated, and the small number of guns meant the damage the fleet was receiving was laughable, though we did have to watch out for incoming damage and call for repairs when needed. But the jamming... Ugh! I kept saying "Nerf fucking jammers!" because the only thing they did was prolong the inevitable. There was also a Manticore and a Drake trying their best to kill some drones but they weren't very successful. They would only come out of the force field for a few seconds but when they noticed they were being targeted they retreated back to safety. Until the Manticore pilot got careless. In a moment of luck and great timing, the bomber had come out of the shields just as I had stopped being jammed and upon hearing that he was out I instantly targeted him, and my sensor boosters proved John Rourke right; stationary ships don't react well to 1400s! Pandemonium on fleet comms :))

As jammers were slowly shutting down one by one, the fleet was having less targetting problems, and ultimately even the Drake got surprised-sexed. After that there was only very little action from the enemy. A new Drake came in but didn't do anything, and the previous Manticore and Drake pilot got into a buzzard and made his way out or safed up. We didn't catch him.

All in all though the op went really well; reinforcing a small tower with a fleet of 20+ is much easier than it is for a large tower with a fleet of 12. It does help that our colony system has a Hi-sec static hole. The large tower we killed was in a Pulsar C4 located pretty deep into W-space, and logistics was a complete bitch. And we even managed to get none other than Letrange out of hiatus to come out and help us! Now the sad part for me is that my week is about to get too hectic to do anything in EVE, so I'll miss the final killing of the tower. But even if I can only log on sporadically over the weekend, a parental one, I will most likely get to see some action because something else is brewing on the horizon... stay tuned!

Friday, November 5, 2010

Told you I'd put some Quebecer stuff here at some point. Offenbach is one of Quebec's best known and most loved rock band, and since he passed away in 1990 singer Gerry Boulet has attained legendary status over here.

On the EVE front, I will have a good battle story to tell as Havegun and I found some fun in Heimatar Low-sec against a small EVE University gang, and a lone local pirate as a 3rd party. I'll wait until I'm a bit more awake to tell it though; it's 5AM here in Montreal! Having a cold means I went to sleep early, and sleep isn't that great. I must convince myself to take my shot of Buckley... damn that shit is bad !!! I hope coffee can wash away the after-taste cuz I need that too :) Have a nice Friday everyone !!!

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Yesterday I thought that maybe I should put my newly learned Caldari Frigate V skill to good use and get myself a new ship. I have enough good interceptors so I skipped those, and as the much awaited for Rocket Fix hasn't happened yet I decided to wait for the Hawk and instead got a Harpy. Big disappointment. I was thinking that with my good Hybrid skills this thing would be mean ship, but it looks like I was wrong. When I asked my buddy Unzer, who is an almost pure Caldari 80m skill point pilot if he had a good fit for the Harpy his answer was short and to the point: "Don't fly one. That's my only good fit.". Okaaaay... I turned on EFT to see what all that was about before I started buying guns and modules for my intended "Blarpy", and it didn't take long to see that Unzer was right. This ship is power grid challenged, has only 2 low slots, too many mids (unless you like to have a sig radius the size of a dump truck), and as all Caldari ships it's slow. A Jaguar has the same number of mid slots but at least it can boogie. And as a blaster platform, a Taranis will do everything better, faster and do more damage. I had paid only 11m ISK for the ship so I made someone happy and sold it directly on the market at 8.5m. I guess I'll wait to see the Rocket Fix and get better missile skills before I try another Caldari boat.

But I was still in a shopping frenzy mood... it shows I've done a few too many L4 missions! So I said "fuck it!" and bought my 5th Loki subsystem, and all the remaining modules for the ship. Some will come straight out of my current mission Sleipnir so I didn't have too much stuff to buy, but the 5th subsystem was also the most expensive one, the Adaptive Shielding. So now all I need is the actual hull and my Hellbringer will be brought back to life. Because I don't freak out over ninja salvagers* the way some other mission runners do (it's quite hilarious in Local sometimes!) I shouldn't be in a position to lose it as easily or fast as the first Loki, but although the ship has some faction goodies, it will not have anything crazy like Officer or meta 10 deadspace complex mods. It may sound weird to be anxious to get a PvE ship but I'm even more anxious to fit a PvP Sleipnir. I'm gonna have to do some EFT warfare as well as some Sisi testing before I have a finalized fit; I don't exactly have the ISK flow to lose multiple command ships in a short time :)

So this being Wednesday it's time to start the weekend plans. In order to be closer to any potential The PvP I will clone-jump out of the mission hub and use any spare time doing exploration. Another corpmate told me yesterday that a couple of good sites could net me the ISK needed to get my Loki hull, but I must admit that my luck in exploration isn't exactly stellar. I think it might be time to up the danger levels a bit and explore that crazy place called Low-sec. According to my corpmate Havegun it's been much too quiet for PvP lately so who knows, I may get lucky for once. I need to put some mileage on my Rapier anyway :)

So that's about it for now. I hope the weekend is a good one filled with interesting stories to tell. Things have been very quiet so some kick-starting may be required. I'll make sure I have my steel-toe shoes on >:)

Fly deadly

o7

*: Hey don't get me wrong, I actually love ninja salvagers! I usually have a PvP ship on hand so if they wanna play, I'll play. My best 1v1 came about because someone had stolen my stuff, so please, steal my stuff some more !!! >:)

Monday, November 1, 2010

For the first time in a very long time, I've spent an entire weekend on shore leave from New Eden. I was very busy with real life with my boys, this being Halloween and all, and I basically caught up on some much needed Z's by going to sleep at the same time as or only shorter after my boys. I thought I could log on after the Halloween candy run but just as the boys were about to nod off after a successful candy harvest, one of 'em had gone to the bathroom and managed to jam the toilet. The next few minutes were frantic as you can imagine, so yeah, no EVE after that! Sleep please !!!

But my parental duties are coming to an end for this week so I plan to make a bit of a comeback. In the plans for this week:

- Caldari T2 frigates: Having ended Caldari Frigate V I now have access to these, but I have yet to buy and fit some. I will most probably get a Crow and a Harpy tonight, with maybe a Flycatcher or two very soon. My missile skills are still limited to T2 rockets, but at least the support skills are now at IV. At least the Harpy is a blaster boat, and I'm covered there.

- 6 days to Interceptor V: Just in time for the changes to rockets and T2 ammunition. I can't wait to fly my Claw and Taranis next sunday, and even more after Incursion hits :) And that is a good thing because:

- The plan that all PvPer's dread to think about: After Inty V I'm starting the Orca plan, so that means training interesting stuff like Mining 3-4, Industry 3-4-5, Astrogeology 3, Mining Barge 1-5, Mining Foreman 1-5, Mining Director 1 and finally Industrial Capital 1-4. I just couldn't stomach training any more carebear shit after that. The use of the Orca will be for field deployment only. I will never boost a miner, and I will never tractor cans. Hell, I may even use it as bait!

- Necessary carebearing to fund the expensive stuff: An Orca and a Loki are not exactly cheap toys so I have no choice but to make a bit of ISK. I don't have the vast ISK flow of industrial players, and I don't buy GTC's for ISK, so I have no choice. It's not a choice I like... that's what I find the suckiest part of EVE, one that may cause me to leave at some point. There are just no fun ways to make ISK; I'm not about to be branded a scammer!

Of course I will try to find some time for The PvP in there or else I will go crazy. Now let's hope I can have a normal weekend for once.

This being Halloween weekend of course I had to post somethings with monsters, demons and all-around evilness. And for once I include my tunage brainstorm that I usually edit out of my text once I've made up my mind. Being a fan of rock and metal there is plenty of Halloweenish stuff to go around, from all eras of music, from "Monster Mash" all the way up to the blackest Norwegian Black Metal. Ultimately though the choice wasn't too hard for my first Halloween Friday Lunch Hour. There may be some debate as to which band is the first to be tagged "heavy metal", but out of those first metal bands there is no debate as to which one had the darkest lyrics and soundscapes. Black Sabbath, by Black Sabbath, from the Black Sabbath album. If you want an example of what makes a piece of music sound dark and menacing, the tritone chord progression, this tune is probably the best example. Yes, the version by Type O Negative is probably darker, but the original is the original. I invite you to check out the other tunes of course, but do heed the warning about Gorgoroth; if you are in any way sensitive to blood, satanic rituals, fake crucifixions, or go to church every sunday, this band is not for you. If you want to see a metal band serious about what they sing(!) about, and to what extremes they go to get their point across, then put on your selt belt and hang on for the ride!

On the EVE front: Last weekend having turned out to be a complete bust I took it very quiet this week, so apart from a few missions and the pirate podding I described in the last post, nothing much as happened. One thing that IS happening is that I'm well on the way to replacing the Loki I lost a while ago. This one won't be flying as dangerously so I should be able to hang onto it a little longer... at least more than 2 weeks :) This means that I will have 2 Sleipnirs to play with. One will probably stay fit for 'plexing and W-space operations, but I will turn the other one into a PvP machine... anyone has a good fit? And that's pretty much it.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

So yesterday I start my EVE session pretty quietly, especially after being stuck away from the game for so long. My eldest boy now back with his mom and his brother, who finally came out of the hospital on Monday evening, I crack open a bottle of La Fin du Monde (one of the best beers in the history of beer), fit Stinkfoot the Sleipnir with the proper modules and ammo to take on the Mordus Headhunters, and proceed to rape 'em senseless. You can't go more carebear without pointing mining lazors on floating rocks. So with a steady flow of awesome beer and ISK, life is good. I had time to do a couple more missions before corpmate, and newly crowned CEO Havegun logs in and starts looking for trouble in Everyshore Low-sec, a perfect place for solo or very small gang The PvP. It didn't take him too long to find some.

For once, the Mya-Gerper dead-end constellation has people looking for action. Havegun is flying his Ishtar and all of a sudden I look at the alliance chat window and see things like "...something something Cyclone", "...something something Drake", "...something something bait", "yay, got the Cyclone!", "...something something Sleipnir", "...something something 'down'". I answer right away with "Should I be clone-jumping somewhere?". After getting informed of Gun's location I clone-jump to Azer, restart the client to enable my USB headset, get in one of my numerous Rifters (Gun had just re-shipped into an Incursus) and we start a tiny 2-man fleet, with me heading to Gerper at best speed. I barely have time to take a breath on the Gerper gate that Gun gives me the "jump in, WTM" order. One of Gun's previous assaillants had just tackled him again with a Rifter of his own, and I land on both frigates which are locked in a dance of death. The next order I got did make me raise my eyebrows: "Coz, don't put your point on him, keep it for the pod". Hmmm, this dude must have a tasty bounty, but I'm a bit too busy all of a sudden to check the pilot's character sheet. The outlaw's Rifter finally explodes and as this happens I start locking the capsule, which I scram and kill a second later. Just as I had predicted, my mailbox and wallet start blinking:

From: CONCORD Sent: 2010.10.27 02:17For your termination of Unknown Taker we have paid you the bounty that was set to his head: 10,000,000.00 ISK

*eye blink*

Of course I give Havegun his half of the bounty, but still, not bad for about 2 minute's work! Later attempts at The PvP only resulted in both our ships' death, but when I logged out I kept thinking about the nice bounty payment. Of all the career paths that one can take in New Eden, the path of Bounty Hunter sure could need some looking into.

As it is right now, outlaws with fat bounties on their heads are almost nothing but flying piggy banks for themselves; they wait for the bounty to get big enough, have themselves podded by an alt or a buddy trustworthy enough to give them back the ISK, and voilà, instant free money. Sure NPC pirate factions have bounties, but mission running or ratting is a far cry from PvP bounty hunting. I'm almost convinced that the addition of a better bounty system, and maybe even the addition of a new class of NPC that would act almost as deathmatch bots do in Quake and other FPS games would help give a new life to Low-sec, giving it its own special flavor. W-space has Sleepers and T3 production, Null-sec has fat 'roids and rats and Sovereignty warfare, and Hi-sec has carebears... Low-sec has pirates and Faction Warfare. It's easy to see that out of four distinct regions of space, one region is the clear loser in ISK making opportunities. "Oh but I have a mission alt", one pilot would say. "I have a mining alt" would say another. Wouldn't it be more fun to be able to make ISK doing something fun instead of making ISK in ways so boring that it feels like a second job? Some players may be into carebearism, but some others, like me, are not.

The way I see it, instead of just plowing ISK on someone's head in the hopes that maybe someone pods him, Bounty Hunting should work more like some kind of miniaturized Wardec, where contracts can be made by players or corporations (not quite sure about alliances... that's stepping into Wardec territory) to put a price on a certain player's head. Just like bounties work right now, a player would need to have a certain amount of negative security status to have a bounty contract applied, and I'm sure that crafty multi-alt players would play this game too; if an outlaw player became aware that someone is willing to pay a bounty to have him podded, he could have an alt take the contract and collect the ISK, but at least it would be a bit more work compared to what is today dead easy. Plus, by the time the outlaw is aware of the price on his head, a true bounty hunter could have already taken the contract to pod him. The bounty hunter would then have a set period of time to complete the contract. When complete, the hunter gets his ISK. If time runs out, the contract dies and the ISK returns to the contractor.

The Bounty Hunter career path would also give some renewed importance to locator agents, which I'm pretty sure do not see as much use as they could. Also, the bounties could also receive some bonuses depending on the ships used in the fight, the system's true security rating (+1.0 to -0.99), distance from the contract's source station, etc.

So that's what a single outlaw kill made me think of. Let's hope I can find more outlaws with fat bounties ready to pop :)

Monday, October 25, 2010

No, this has nothing to do with EVE, even though the weekend started weird when I found an Angel deadspace complex called Angel Vigil that was tougher than any L4 mission I had done before. 6 warp-outs later I finally finished it, and all I got out of the complex boss was some Arch Angel ammo, a Domination tag, and a meta4 nanofiber module. Whoopty fuckin' doo. I didn't bother to salvage the thing because I was too pissed off. And that's pretty much where my EVE weekend ended. Read on.

On Saturday morning I get up on the late side as this is my weekend without my boys. My eyeballs are still not aligned with the sockets when the phone rings. It's my ex, with grim news. At 4AM my ex and my boys had rushed to the hospital because my youngest boy, Timothée, was having a nasty asthma attack. So of course I have to go pick up Léandre who is not sick to make sure he doesn't catch something nasty; hospitals tend to have sick people. So as the saying goes, there goes my weekend. I also had to miss the Montreal EVE Pilots Meet which for once was visited by a few of ASMIC's uber industrials, the Wyldfyre family. Yep, the stars were extremely out of wack this weekend.

Yesterday night I did get on EVE if only to jump back to my implants because I don't know when the situation will resolve itself. So if I do get on it will be for a mission or two because I may have to stop at any instant. And starting Thursday is the official parental weekend, but with a break on Saturday night because I've been invited to go see Experience Hendrix. This should lighten things up quite nicely!

Friday, October 22, 2010

I discovered Archive after seeing the video for "Again", and rushed out to get the CD to hear the rest, and fell in love with this little known band with Pink Floyd-ish inspiration. The tune "Fool" puts me in the mindset of driving on empty roads at early morning hours.

On the EVE front: things have been a tad slow at MAPU this past week, and maybe in all of AMC as well. Bad timing I guess. I did go out on a long solo roam on Wednesday night where I went from Heimatar Low-sec to Forge Low-sec, and then to Russian space in Etherium Reach, then back to Forge towards Metropolis, then into Molden Heath, with a side trip in Great Wildlands. I was first flying a Taranis but not far from home I met a -10 Rifter pilot. He had just docked up but he has seen me. He undocked right away and a fight ensued. I lost the Taranis, but it came down to the last bits of structure. Being late on pulling out drones against a character 2 years older than Coz was a mistake. Oh well :)

I then reshipped into a Rifter of my own and went on the long roam. I was very quiet. I did steal a shuttle kill from an artillery fit Hurricane. I had seen him previously and had landed one shot that had halfed my shields. I jumped out and saw the shuttle jump in just as my session timer had ended. Knowing that all the gates were bubbled I followed it in warp hoping to snag it, and now that I knew how the Cane was fit maybe get myself a juicy kill. I got the shuttle which got me a "WTF dude?!?!" in Russian, and as I started arcing towards the Cane at high transversal speed, he couldn't hit me and obviously didn't have drones. Unfortunately for my juicy kill project he warped off before I got into scram range. Ah well

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Lately I've been polishing up some training I had left behind when I decided I had had enough of getting killed by Taranis pilots and wanted to get in on the action. This was followed by intense training for the Broadsword and the Vagabond, sprinkled with a smidge of Cheetah and Rapier, and finally with good battleship skills, followed by Field Command Ships. All of this had the effect of putting a serious hole in my training: missile skills. Until recently the damage I was doing with missiles was just a little extra over the awesome output of my guns. I can fly a nicely tanked bait Drake but even for this particular battlecruiser my damage output would be anemic enough to pass it up. But among the things that are coming with the Incursion expansion is the long awaited rocket fix... ABOUT GOD DAMNED TIME !!!!

One ship that I have the feeling will receive some love because of this is the Republic Fleet Firetail. Having already suffered a lot at the time of the Quantum Rise speed rebalance, it received a quasi death blow when the Dramiel was raised to Uber Tackling King status. I don't know (and seriously doubt) if the Firetail will de-throne the Angel frigate, but with rockets being a lot more effective I suspect that the 2 gun/ 2 launcher setup will make the Firetail a great assault frigate. Other ships will also feel the love given to the rockets: the Flycatcher and Heretic interdictors, the Malediction, Crow and Claw interceptors, the Hawk assault frigate, the Gurista Worm frigate... those are a few ships which will surely become very popular once Incursion hits. I have already patched up missile training to the point that I can finally use T2 rocket launchers, and after a bit more support skill polishing I'll be training up Caldari Frigate V, followed by Amarr Frigate V. This will allow me to fly all of the ships named here with T2 setups.

Once all that is done I will come at yet another crossroads in my EVE career. Do I go the Caldari or the Amarr way? Do I get my Gallente Battleship IV and T2 weapons? Or do I keep deepening my Minmatar skills? Some of the minnie ships are really nice and useful like the Scimitar and Claymore, but I see myself more of a loner even in a fleet setting. E-war frigates... never been interested, plus if I want to play that type of game I have access to Huginns and Rapiers now. Marauders? Meh, I'm not enough of a mission runner, and my Sleipnir kills L4 missions quite quickly; the only things that would make missioning more fun would be a Loki or a Machariel, but my EVE play style makes me a poor guy so I'll be in the Slippy for a good while. Besides, I want to keep the Machariel as a gift celebrating Minnie BS V and Gal BS V... still have a while to go!

And finally, do I want to have a couple of big ships if only as haulers? Of course I'm talking Orca and Nidhoggur here; whenever I have lots of ships and stuff to move to an area I hate feeling dependant on other players. I know the Nid is the ugly duckling of the carriers, but because I have no intentions of taking a carrier into combat that makes it the perfect hauler for me, especially if I ever decide to go back to Null-sec. If I do such a move it will be after some careful corporation shopping though because I have zero interest in Sovereignty or Capital Ship warfare, and I'm quite happy here at MAPU. The Orca is an awesome asset in Hi-sec space, but over a month of industrial skill training makes me shy away from it. But having "borrowed" one I've seen how useful it is. Of course if I get one it has to stay docked up when (not if) Helicity Boson throws on Hulkageddon IV; I'll be too busy losing sec status anyway :))

My parental weekend is over, and I'm done with POS bashes for a while so I can see only one thing in my EVE future: FUN! :))

Friday, October 15, 2010

One of my favorite tunes from Megadeth. The lyrics are a collage of many of the band's song titles, and the guitar duel between Dave Mustaine and Marty Friedman is just perfect. Enjoy!

EVE Front: not much really. After last weekend's POS bashing activities I needed to step away from the keyboard and enjoy my vacation. The highlight of the week was on Tuesday when I went to Mont Tremblant to do a bit of hiking, followed by a short visit at Micro-brasserie La Diable, to enjoy what is probably the finest beer in existence, L'Extreme Onction. If you're into beers brewed by trappist monk recipes, this is The Shit. And this weekend I have my boys so I'll stay quiet (sort of) until I have to go back to Reality.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Yeah. An opening post dipped in heavy layers of Role Playing, and crowned by a killmail of a marauder that's as expensive as a super-carrier, or a fleet of regular capitals. I've already posted my reply on the thread, and anyway I think anyone who reads this blog has an idea of how I feel about this.

Monday, October 11, 2010

What a crazy vacation start it has been. A few weeks ago, one of the AMC wormhole-based corporations discovered a very desirable C4 Pulsar system with a C4 static and other goodies. There was a slight problem: the system was inhabited. Well, sort of. A Russian corporation called MEHP was the owner of a Large Caldari Control Tower, but after some observation it was clear that this corp didn't have a big active roster in the system. So preparations were made for the invasion. But it wasn't going to be easy to get a fleet in there; the C4 system is pretty deep into wormhole space, and sometimes finding the road to Empire can be... interesting.

After some logistics headaches, Black Line Inc. anchored a temporary tower away from prying eyes, which allowed the alliance to bring in the ships which would do the bashing. Things got slowed down a bit when last Thursday night it was near impossible to get a path that lead to Empire; the closest K-space exit landed in Cobalt Edge, on the very North-Eastern tip of New Eden. Things got better on Friday with exits in Amarr and Minmatar space so I was finally able to fly my specialty fit Shield Tempest into the system code-named GND. Because of various real-life activities like drum lessons (I'm on the giving end... scary thought!), the Montreal EVE Pilots Meet, and another party, I missed the opening ceremonies of what will be known as the 10-10-10 POS Bash. But my late arrival didn't matter much because as you probably know, everything with shields in a Pulsar gets tanky. In a C4, it gets worse. On Saturday morning not too long before down time, we finished incapaciting the defenses. Proof of the Russians' ineptitude: who needs Warp Disruptors or Webs on a tower?! Or Medium Guns? Yes there was some ECM and Neutralizers but they just made the defense neutering merely annoying. At 0515 Eastern time, I shut down the Tempest and went to bed.

At 1100 Eastern I got up and logged in before I even started making coffee. A few other pilots logged in around the same time so a quick check for activity at the enemy POS later (there was none), I formed the fleet that would get rid of this fail-tower. At 1610 evetime, 10-10-10, The true POS Bash started. Thankfully some pilots had stayed up right until Down Time to start denting the tower's humongous shields, which shortened the job slightly. It was still very long; at around 2100 evetime, the tower went into reinforced mode. And surprise surprise, moar fail! The reinforced timer shows 3h15. The tower being now clearly abandoned (with one Russian guy ejecting from a Badger containing T3 BPCs and building materials; how awesome!) and no time for anything to get repaired, everyone took a short break right on time for supper, and some additional forces were able to make it into GND, replacing some of the European pilots who had to bail. At 0015, 10-11-10, the bashing resumed as I opened the final ceremonies with volleys kind of like this one:

Once again the operation was most uneventful but the Pulsar-boosted shields took what seemed like forever to fail. But once that was done, the armor penalties made things a lot faster, and at 0331 evetime, the tower finally disappeared from existence. Let the looting and unanchoring commence !!!

Mmmm, pretty 'splosions !!!

Not wanting to travel more jumps than absolutely necessary, I left my specialty Tempest in the system and I asked the owner of the POS killmail (his first ever killmail by the way) to gracefully pod me to my HQ. It was funny because he was very reluctant at first, not wanting to fire on friendlies. But with a bit of good-natured insults he finally complied. Notice the nice killmail whorage :))

So all in all it was a good operation, if a bit too long for my taste. I am seriously thinking of training Amarr battleships just for occasions like this; these would be stupidly fail-tanked of course, but if all I have to do is shoot at least I don't have to press the F1 button repeatedly for hours on end. I will do my best to stay away from POS Bashing altogether :)

Thank you Black Line Inc. for this special weekend, even if it was excruciatingly long.

Friday, October 1, 2010

This week's video is a big change of pace. It shows that I'm not only into destroying mine and everyone else's ear drums. I've had an extremely rough time in personal matters this week and I'm in need of much relaxation, among other things. This tune is one of Trent Reznor's very best. I hope is southes your aches as much as it does mine.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

This is an unofficial Blog Banter post because I can't be arsed to copy/paste stuff and track everyone that's writing about this. I'm sure CK is ok with that, and if not he can come tell me in person at the next Montreal EVE Meet (October 9th 7PM at Brutopia if you're interested!).

Here's a revelation that I'm sure will shock everyone: Low-sec sucks. Apart from looking for some The PvP there is currently no reason to live there. I have never ransomed anyone but I can bet my mom that ransoms do not pay for all of a pirate's expenses. So the Low-sec population these days currently looks like this: pirates, passer-bys, capital/cyno pilots, and clueless people about to be ganked. There is no resource that would make a Hi-sec carebear disregard his sacrosanct safety for the prospect of earning more ISK. This has to change.

Lately I've been flying a lot into Low-sec to get some action but I'm not into it to become a pirate and ransom every ship I come across. I'm more into making pirates pay for their choice of profession. I'm not saying that it works all the time but it does happen, and let me tell you, if anything, pirate tears taste even better than carebear tears! Pirates very rarely get offended, but when they do it's priceless :)

But I'm not a PvP-only person. I actually happen to like some PvE every so often; Hell I even find ratting relaxing because the only thing you have to think about is to blow shit up. Oh, and reload your guns! But here's one of the reasons Low-sec sucks for the average ratter, apart from the dangers that may appear in Local:

Easy to notice that bounties are kind of lopsided. Add to that the fact that if you are in a big alliance it is a lot safer to rat in 0.0 by a large margin... yeah, no wonder pirates just can't find targets in asteroid belts and are reduced to camping gates in heavily tanked battleships (which can die to interceptors I might add!) and station f... unmanliness. So if Hi-sec is the downtown area, and Null-sec is the lush countryside full of wildlife, Low-sec is the slum with crumbling buildings because no one is taking care of them. And unless CCP does something about it, it will stay that way.

But there is a core of players who are willing to do something about it. CSM Chairman Mynxee and a team of players varying from -10 outlaws to pure carebears looking for a lucrative revenue without having to move to the butt-end of Nowhere are currently looking into ways of Making Low-sec Matter, and I happen to be a part of the team as the "kind-of-anti-pirate-weekend-hunter-who-may-also-like-a-way-to-make-some-good-ISK" type player. It's only been a few days since the ball has started rolling but ideas are already starting to flow like a rushing stream. Low-sec has been ignored for too long, and it's time someone gives it some love.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Today it all came together like it rarely does. Our sunday PvP op did start off rather normally and our small gang made up of a Hurricane, Harbinger, Vexor, Stabber and Caracal (an Ishkur joined us later) caught a Myrmidon in Caldari Low-sec. We had spotted him and a couple of his buddies flying around but they were making themselves a bit shy. At some point for reasons unknown, the Myrmidon warped to a tactical spot about 350km from the gate we were sitting on. At first we didn't do much but then I slowly notice that he's approaching us at low speed. Knowning there weren't too many people out in space who may be jumping us short of having a massive log-on trap, I announced my intention and start heading towards the Myrm. When it became clear that he was going to commit himself I turned on my Microwarp Drive and burned towards him Vaga style, half expecting him to warp off just before I lay a point on him. But he did not. Bad call on his part. Being now just under 200km away from the gate the gang can now warp to me and the Myrmidon got melted rather quickly. Just as we were about to finish him off his buddies had arrived at the gate, but too late to do anything but watch us loot the wreck. They made themselves scarce after that.

We continued a bit farther into Low-sec when at some point we see something funny. A train of a few capsules passed us in a very short time. Funny at first but things got serious fast. A few jumps later our scout spots a Tengu and two Drakes. We decided to go for the tasty Tengu, but it turned out to be a big mistake as litterally, Voltron formed on us! They had laid down the trap carefully, had a good idea of our fleet's composition because these were the capsuleers we had seen previously, and it was over quickly. My hat's off to them for not only catching us, but also for being very good sports about it. I don't know them that much, but We Form Voltron appears to be a class act. Cheers guys :)

But of course this made us want to keep on hunting so we made it back to HQ at best speed to reship, this time slightly cheaper, and much smaller in my case. The new fleet was composed of a Rupture, Caracal, Cyclone and my Taranis. Before we set off Havegun, our Rupture pilot, decides to go just on the edge of Low-sec to see if by any chance there is some action. There was. Fasten your seat belts ladies and gents, because this is where the fun starts!

As the other three ships are on their way to our rendez-vous point, Havegun gets tackled by a Phobos and a Zealot. The Rupture is holding it together though, and as we jump in we decide to go for the most expensive ship, the Phobos. And Lo and Behold, we pull it off! The Zealot warps off and a few seconds later, an Abaddon arrives on the scene. We all get on him right away and start laying on the pain, but a few seconds later a Megathron arrives (the Phobos pilot obviously) and starts to put the hurt on our larger ships. One thing we did do good: we got rid of all our opponent's drones. Therefore, when there's only my Taranis left, orbiting the Abaddon at 500-1000m, I'm slowly eating up the battleship's buffer tank, helped by the gate guns of course, and the Megathron just cannot hit me; the whole "hitting a fly with a baseball bat" thing. So the Mega warps off, and my fleet mates are frantically scrambling for replacement ships to finish the job. But it's looking very much like I will not need them... or am I?

With my heart pounding like mad over the potential solo kill from hell, my feeling sinks a bit when an Oneiros arrives on the field of battle and starts repairing the Abaddon, and sends a new flight of drones at me. I send my own two drones after the Oneiros', and in the nick of time Havegun returns with a Rifter and gets rid of the drones hurting me. The Oneiros sends a second flight of Warrior IIs but this flight lasts about 20 seconds. The Rifter is then free to start killing the logistics ship, and I can just do my thing and keep putting the pressure on the battleship. A probably shorter time than I think after that, the Oneiros blows up. The already very damaged Abaddon doesn't survive much longer. And about damn time too, because the only ammo I had left was 36 rounds of Federation Navy Anti-matter S in the cargo hold, and whatever was left in my blasters! The wrecks get looted real quick and Havegun and I get out of dodge; again in a timely fashion, my fleetmate Felix arrives on the field in his stealth bomber just in time to see, of all things, an Absolution and a Thanatos warping not to the gate (which would be fail enough) but to the wrecks, 40km away from it. I find this so funny that I asked in our Alliance chat if anyone was up to kill a carrier :)) They weren't but we didn't care. One of the best fights in our EVE careers had just happened.

We tried to go for a third trip but at this time some people were going to have to log off, and when one of our cruisers got caught pants down on a gate, we called off the op and went back to HQ. I have this feeling that this fight well be a tough one to be beat, especially in terms of what we killed with the ships we had. Our victim wasn't exactly happy about it though, predictably enough. But one thing I don't get... Mr WayCharles, you are a -10 pirate, therefore anyone is free to shoot at you. Getting offended over getting attacked by us... dude, just WTF?!?! Oh well, I hope you have a good ISK source :))

I'd like to thank the following pilots for making the small fleet that made a great afternoon: Havegun Willtravel, Felix Dcat, Gemorion, Bishopgwa, and special guest Sue AGPlant from Rionnag Alba. And WayCharles/Shiln... I guess we'll be seein' ya >:)

Friday, September 24, 2010

We now take a trip back in time when rock music was absolutely epic. Before anyone mentions the un-reacting audience, remember that this is the BBC in the 70s... either that or they're just awestruck at the brilliance of this tune.

On the EVE front, a few of us at MAPU decided to go on a roam yesterday. Nothing special happened except a very long fight with a nicely tanked Drake, which we had to be cut short when the guy's help arrived. Note to self: if a Drake is fit to tank Angels, do not shoot Barrage at it. Oh well. The Rep Fleet EMP is in the Vaga's cargo hold now, and I'll probably add a few more flavors just in case. I've also switched my drones from Warriors to Hobgoblins. We live in the middle of Angel infested territory so of course we'll run across more explosive tankers.

I also have a new toy to practice with over the weekend, my first Rapier. This should be a fun weekend :)

Yes, I am finally on par with a lot of EVE players. I can do the tedious stuff while watching a movie. I can research information as I fly, and most importantly I can FC and use a dynamic map system instead of sheets of paper which have a tendency to get damages and/or lost, and if/when I have to use Skype, Team Speak, Ventrilo, I can have it visible and see what's going on instead of having it running in the background. About time!

The only downside I have so far is that the two screens are of different sizes and resolutions: my main is 22" and the second one is 19". So I can't use both for things like flight sims or race sims, it would just look too awkward. But who knows, I may get another 22" screen at some point in the future.

That's about it for now. I don't have much computer time this weekend, parenthood is keeping me too busy. Back on Tuesday night with a vengeance >:)

Friday, September 17, 2010

Back to metal, in no uncertain ways. Forget about headphones, this one is for listening on speakers as loud as possible. If your speakers break up, break apart or blow up, it means you were in tune with the essence of Slayer. If not, you either have a very good sound system or you're a wuss. If someone complains that it's too loud, it's because that someone is too old.

Enjoy the Slaytanicity of Slayer

\m/ >_< \m/

EVE Front: the numbers are slowly climbing in MAPU corp. This will be a quiet weekend because of parental duties but the first scheduled ops will be starting. I may not make the first op, but the second is my thing so it would take something dire to keep me from it.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

As most of you bloggers already know, my great buddy Letrange has recently stepped down as leader of Apoapsis Multiversal Consortium and taken his corporation out of the alliance in preparation for a much needed break away from EVE. So of course we just had to underline the event with as decent a fleet as we could muster. It wasn't exactly a blob but our skirmish gang was well equipped to play hard; Letrange had requested for everyone who would show up to bring a good PvP ship because he wanted to blood his PvP Loki. The call was heard, and this is what our skirmish gang looked like: Loki, fleet-boosting Tengu, Vagabond x2, Gila, Curse, Rook x2, Falcon, Arazu, Crow and Thorax. Yeah... things were going to get interesting unless we ran into huge numbers or capitals.

So we set off from our HQ in Gerbold towards Metropolis Low-sec space; though we had a very nice fleet, Letrange was not quite comfy with the idea to head to Null-sec (some of us, me included, were requesting a trip to Providence ^_^) so instead we did sort of a Tour de Low-sec, looking mostly for piwats but if we would've seen anything tasty in a belt or doing missions, we would've stomped on it. We get to the Evati system where our scout spots a criminal Harbinger hanging some distance off a gate (sorry, can't remember which), preying on whatever is jumping through. Our second Vaga pilot, me being the other one, jumps in and starts to annoy the BC to see if he'll get aggression, and sure enough, the Harbinger bites. The Arazu decloaks, the gang jumps in and warps to the Vaga, and the Harbinger gets, scrammed, webbed, jammed and fragged into next Sunday. He had a good tank so he could kill people around the gates, but our fleet over-powered him in no time flat. In a great stroke of luck it is Letrange himself who got the killmail, thereby blooding Hellhound, his unbelievably nasty Loki.

We next set off towards the Minmatar-Amarr border. At one point we had to evade a 40-50 man gang that cut off our original route towards Gallente Low-sec, where we knew we were going to see action. Unfortunately for us, there wasn't much action along the way. Kind of weird for a Sunday after noon. At one point we did have hopes way up as a Thanatos and a Chimera were clearly doing a deadspace complex; now, why would anyone do a plex in Low-sec in 2 carriers is beyond me. It would've taken a long time to kill them, but we had the jamming power to keep both carriers out of the fight. Unfortunately, just as our prober was about to land the 100% on them, the carriers disappeared as they jumped out to a cyno field somewhere. Good call.

At this point we are into Amarr Low-sec and we can start to make our way towards Gallente space from the other side. The plan is to go play with some of the piwat alliances (*cough*VETO*cough*) living out there. Once again we are met with a lot of empty space, but at one point a bigger gang (around 30) crosses our way. This was a bit overwhelming but where our scout didn't stick around long enough to get ship types, I felt that even at 12 vs 30ish, if the other fleet had too many weak links it would have been possible to kill enough of them to get them to disengage. Anyway, nothing happened as the bigger gang didn't stick around and moved on, leaving us once again in near-empty space. The op had been going on for about 2 hours now, and some pilots would be having to drop fleet. So we decided to find the one close place where we were absolutely certain to find some trouble: Old Man Star!

As is usually the case with OMS, the place is a complete mess; you cannot know who is flying with who or against who, there are ship wrecks everywhere, and a good number of people are tagged criminals. As we hang around on various gates, no one dares aggress us, which is a nice feeling. Meanwhile our Recon pilots are trying to find some targets, one by going to belts and the other by trying to probe a Tengu and a Nighthawk we had on scan. Our scout lands on a red Thorax who is asking for it. As we land he melts in no time, and all of a sudden about 6-7 ships land at a tactical from the belt. We have a short Mexican Stand-Off where we just looked at each other, but the arrival on scan of a carrier has us moving elsewhere because we were pretty sure these guys were together... call it gut feeling. We wait for news about the Tengu and Nighthawk to see if we can nab one last, really expensive kill, but they are safe inside a POS force field so that's pretty much it. The fleet then disbands, and Letrange is wished a warm "goodbye and have a nice one!".

After reshipping to a much cheaper Thorax, 3 of us, including a Hyena pilot who made his way towards the fleet as the op was about to end, wanted to find more trouble in Old Man Star, and sure enough we did. The story behind this: the Hyena and I are touring the OMS belts, looking for trouble. I land into an empty one and just as I warp off an Ishkur arrives. But unfortunately our Hyena pilot lands at the same belt just after I've left. A second Ishkur then shows up so the Hyena dies a horrible death. So it's Arazu/T1-rax vs Ishkur x2. We call the closest Ishkur primary but we make a discovery: these guys are flying the exact same way you would fly remote-repping cap-transfering Domi's. The Ishkur's tank holds and they are able to kill first the Arazu, and then my Thorax. The frustrating part is that if I had been in a T2 fit Thorax the Ishkur would have gone down with me. Oh well, such is The PvP :)

So all in all, this was a great afternoon and much fun was had. MAPU will be doing these kinds of roams more often the near future, and it also sparked some interest in some of the other corp's pilots. I personally can't wait to do it again! So Letrange, your last official roam was a good one, but if you feel like joining in the fun during your hiatus you'll be welcome as if you never left :)